There are a variety of reasons musicians and indie artists fail. Some lack real talent or work ethic. Some suffer from bad timing – like starting up a hair metal band just as grunge began to take over in the early 90s. Other artists lack motivation or let their fears win. This is definitely an abbreviated list, but you can see a common thread here if you look closely. Read more.
The holiday season, especially the golden month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is the most lucrative time of the year for retail sales. As an independent musician, it can be a time for you to move a ton of product – professionally manufactured CDs, merch, and more. There are many ways to take advantage of this time of the year, and our new guide answers questions about how to prepare your order and make your new release something special for the holidays.
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Before scheduling your album release, plan for the steps that lie between songwriting and CD manufacturing. This DIY album release checklist will help. Read more.
PeaceTones is an on-the-ground initiative with a mission to economically and legally empower musicians in developing countries. Musicians were chosen because they have the ability, more than most any other profession, to cut through socio-economic boundaries and really speak to a population. The idea is if we work with musicians and get some of these ideas in their heads – making everyone accountable before the law and ideas of justice and equality – if these are topics musicians consciously advocate for, the reach within a community would be exponential.
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We’ve all seen and read posts and eBooks about “how to succeed” as independent artists and to be honest, I’ve even written a few. But what about those of us who are bent on failure? Those of us who would like to know how to shoot ourselves in the foot? Those of us who would like to be more unsuccessful and confused? Well this post is for you! Some of these things I’ve done myself, and I can assure you – they work amazingly well! Read more.
Musician Steve Ansell of Blood Red Shoes has played (and continues to play) in many DIY bands. Blood Red Shoes’ second album, Fire Like This, was recently released, and Drowned in Sound got ahold of him to talk about what he’s learned over the past few years and what it was like to switch from the DIY punk scene to the corporate-sponsored festival arena scene.
Check out the article, called “10 Things I Have Learned: From a DIY band to a ‘professional musician’.” Read more…